


Too Much

by marginaliana



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 17:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6088951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was a word that Richard had expected to use to describe James in bed, 'kind' probably wasn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much

If there was a word that Richard had expected to use to describe James in bed, 'kind' probably wasn't it. And yet it was the word he thought of, inescapably, whenever they were apart and he was remembering past moments or imagining what was to come.

He had always found sex rather overwhelming, in a way that didn't seem quite manly – one of those things, like his height, where he'd never quite measured up to what society seemed to expect. With sex, it was just that there was so much to take in, sound and smell and sight and touch, the feeling of his own body's movements and the soft-slick-push-rub-slide of another body against him. Sometimes that cascade of sensation drove him to impossible heights, made him giddy and thrilled and ecstatic. But more often he found himself strung out, frazzled, caught between too many different feelings to enjoy any one of them.

Richard had dealt with it, in the past, by focusing intently on his partners – memorizing what they liked and didn't like, making it his mission to please them more than himself – and forcing himself into a sort of controlled detachment. It meant that his partners tended to regard him favorably, which of course he was happy about, but he'd have been lying if he'd said he'd never wished to lose himself in the moment the way they seemed to, never wished he didn't have to be so bloody in control at every second.

Perhaps he ought to have guessed that things would be different with James. For one thing James was a man, but more than that, he was _James_. He liked Richard's intensity of focus, but didn't much care to have it directed only at him for long periods, even outside the bedroom. And inside the bedroom, it was clear that he didn't fancy the idea of being worshipped the way some of Richard's previous partners had. He only wanted, with that same honest desire with which he wanted anything, to please Richard and be pleased, in turn or together. 

The first time it happened – the first time they had sex in bed rather than a hurried hand job in Richard's dressing room on the tour – he shoved James off him before he even realized he was doing it, rolled away and put his face in his hands, trembling. For a long moment he couldn't even think, but as his heart rate calmed, the instinctive panic slipped away only to be replaced with a different sort of panic entirely. _Fuck,_ he thought. _I've made a complete cock of myself. Well done, Hammond, you've gone and ruined it. Again._

He waited for James to say something – accusatory or petulant or just uncomprehending – but James just stayed beside him. When Richard finally gathered his strength to look over, he found James watching him with nothing but patience in his expression. "Not good, or just too much?" James said.

"Too much," Richard said instantly, feeling relief sweep through him. Christ, James actually might _understand_. "Sometimes, I—" James was nodding, and Richard let the sentence trail off.

"Try again?" James said. He reached over, moving slowly, and set his hand on Richard's arm. It felt good, rather than panicky, and so Richard blew out a breath and nodded and let himself be drawn carefully back into an embrace.

From that point on, the evidence of James' care was always there, if Richard cared to look. It was there in the way that James never pushed him down into the sheets, never weighted him down with his whole body. It was there in the way that his eyes watched Richard's face, the way he sometimes took Richard higher and higher, then varied his touch just at the moment before it tipped over that invisible line from yes into no. They never talked about it – but the care was there precisely in the way that they didn't talk about it, the way that James never questioned him or made him explain himself, never made him feel like he was delicate.

Sometimes they didn't quite get it right, especially at first, but the matter-of-fact way that James waited things out when they did go wrong somehow meant that the freakouts happened less and less, over time. Richard learned to trust him – learned to trust himself, too, his body in James' hands. 

And now, three years in, they have settled into a rhythm together. When James touches him, Richard doesn't worry about what's to come. He only knows that they're better together, and that James – quiet, careful, _kind_ James – is everything he'd never known he wanted.


End file.
